strategic_marketing_anu_2017_khadfandomcom-20200215-history
Wiki 2- Experiential Marketing
Question 1 a) How does experiential marketing help a brand to tell its story more effectively? Experiential marketing is a form of advertising that focuses on generating a relationship between brands and consumers through the active engagement with the brand. It is crucial that this kind of marketing "…creates a sensory-emotional connection to customers." (Schmitt & Rogers, 2008) Experiential marketing can create a memorable experience with the brand such as LEGO, Victoria's Secret and Apple (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010) or, in GoPro's case, encourage consumers to engage with the product and brand through the experiences that their online videos generate. b) Which key points must a brand incorporate to ensure a sophisticated experiential marketing campaign that reinforces their narrative? Some of the key points that must be incorporated into a experiential marketing campaign are outlined by Bernd Schmitt (2008) with the purpose of entertaining, stimulating, emotionally challenging and creatively challenging consumers. Schmitt's (2008) five marketing experiences: * Sense marketing - Elements that appeal to the human senses including sight, sound, taste and smell * Feel marketing - Elements of a campaign which will engage the feelings and emotions of the consumer * Think marketing - Elements that appeal to the intellect of the consumer in order to challenge their creativity with the purpose of generating deeper brand resonance * Act marketing - Elements that engage consumers physically, either in a lifestyle capacity or in their behaviours * Relate marketing - This experience aims to engage the self-esteem and ego of the consumers to remain part of the social norm. This experience also focused around highlighting the community aspect that a brand and product can generate. The successful integration of these marketing experiences into a experiential marketing campaign engages the consumer on a number of levels and is much more likely to achieve the brand resonance which the campaign intended to create. Question 2 a) Critique your favourite experiential campaign (perhaps you have been involved in it directly) - What was the brand? '' The brand which we as a group felt had one of the most successful experiential marketing campaigns that we had experienced was through GoPro's Youtube channel in association with their athletes/brand ambassadors. From this platform consumers are able to see first hand the capabilities of the product and what they could create with the product. The second, but equally important part of the campaign is the second stage of sharing their experiences through videos online, encouraging other possible consumers to do the same. In this case two members of the group were attracted to the brand and took part in this ongoing campaign, posting their experiences of the product online. ''GoPro Experiences My GoPro Experience (Heidi): Munich, January 2017 This video is from when I went to Munich to visit my brother and his son. My brother wore the GoPro on his head and documented me learning to snowboard. This video was part of many other ones; however, this was the best one to use to show my brother teaching me, rather than just me falling over. We filmed different angles and even a run of me wearing the GoPro, however, I don’t have access to that video unfortunately. The video doesn’t show a ‘traditional’ use of the GoPro, like using it for extreme sports. However, it does show the use of it for a physical activity and to document the progress of someone and allow them to see their technique or in my case, what I was doing wrong. The different ways of using the GoPro, so for example, either on the individual’s head, on someone’s hand, on the front of the ski, show many different perceptions people can view an activity from. My GoPro Experience (Doug): Lowes Mount State Forest, 2012 This is one of the videos collected from my use of the GoPro Hero 2 camera, back when I used to ride dirt bikes recreationally. I used the 980p settings at 60 frames per second, and used the ‘chesty’ mount, as this mount after a lot of trial and error created the cleanest picture that didn’t have too much camera shake and got most of the action in the shot. Part of my use of the GoPro was to film what I had done for the day so that I and my father could re-watch the footage and go over how we had ridden a certain section that we had done for that day, and how we might improve upon our approach. There is also a definite element of ‘bench racing’ which is a term used in the dirt bike scene whereby you compare and brag about how you rode that day with your fellow riders, which is something that the GoPro facilitates for many riders. Part of what inspired me to begin using the GoPro was seeing my favourite athletes at the time, such as professional motocross and supercross riders Ryan Dungey and James Stewart, both use the GoPro as they rode their motorcycles, which gave me the feeling that I could emulate their behaviour and use the camera to create interesting footage of me using the product. b) What was the purpose of the campaign? GoPro not only engaged consumers with their campaign but has also created a thriving and growing online community based around this ongoing campaign. Consumers are drawn to the product through the Youtube videos both showcasing the functions of the product and the idea that they may be able to recreate some of the activities and footage shown on the GoPro Youtube channel by GoPro's brand ambassadors. In order to maximise the possible target market of the campaign a variety of countries, hobbies and sports feature in the channel to highlight the wide ranging of uses of GoPros. Once a consumer has purchased a product their interaction with the campaign is not complete as they are actively encouraged to post about their activities using their GoPro online. This adds an additional level to their campaign, allowing GoPro to freely advertise their product on video sharing platforms such as YouTube. The act of consumers posting online generates a community of users who add more and more to the existing brand narrative, which has made GoPro a household name. c)What elements were used, were these consistent with the purpose and why? When analysing GoPro's experiential marketing scheme through the scope of Schmitt's (2008) five marketing experiences it is evident that all of the elements were utilised but the success of the campaign was particularly dependant on the "Relate experience". * Sensory experiences ** The use of visual imagery and sound is clearly used to give consumers the feeling that they are sharing this experience with the person who is filming * Emotive experiences ** Due to the exciting or interesting content of the videos consumers feel invested in the outcome of the activity and the success of the subject * Cognitive experiences ** By building on the sensory element consumers are able to analyse the risks, rewards and analyse how the subject in the video is able to perform the activity in the video ** This leads to the natural question of "Can I do that?", often resulting in the purchase of the product as they have a desire to answer this question * Act marketing ** It would be an accurate statement to say that generally all GoPro made videos, showing some form of physical, behavioural or lifestyle activities. ** The nature of the campaign also promotes this active activity as a lifestyle and highlights the community that can be accessed by participating in these activities * Relate marketing ** This element of the marketing experience is possibly the most applicable and important to the success of the campaign due to the community based nature that the videos created online. ** Reinforces social-identify and inclusion, a crucial factor when convincing consumers to become part of the greater GoPro story ** The product in its nature is a very social one as people often make these videos to be viewed as an avenue for people to share their story. People pushing their limits and then showing the success and the happiness once they have achieved the activity they did. ** This reinforces the emotive experience and encourages to become part of this experience as well d) Was the campaign successful? We as a group believe that the campaign is successful, with more videos being shared online then ever before. The business has been constantly growing since it's founding in 2002 on the back of this progressive and ongoing campaign. GoPro has become a household name in a very short period of time and solidifying its position as the dominant brand in the action camera market. The campaign engages consumers through all of Schmitt's marketing experiences, specifically in it's ability to engage the social motives of it's consumers. Once the product is purchased it is expected that the footage of the GoPro will be shared, in doing so expanding GoPro's market and community. It is possible that in the future this online community that GoPro has generated could grow even larger as an increasingly tech savvy consumer base are encouraged to post their footage online. References: Bernd H. Schmitt and David L. Rogers, Handbook on Brand and Experience Management (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008) Keller, K (2013). Strategic Brand Management. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. 181-186. Liz Zarantonello and Bernd H. Schmitt, “Using the Brand Experience Scale to Pro le Consumers and Pre- dict Consumer Behaviour,” Journal of Brand Manage- ment 17 (June 2010): 532–540. Madlala, A. (2016). The keys to a successful experiential marketing campaign. Available: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/423/141271.html. Last accessed 20th March 2017. Yuan, Y & Wu, C. (2008). Relationships Among Experiential Marketing, Experiential Value, and Customer Satisfaction. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research. 3 (3), 387-410.